Rolling the French "R" (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Rolling the French "R"
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

10 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

Kavakos
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Message 9 of 10

28 April 2015 at 5:54am | IP Logged

You don't want the change the place of articulation (the uvula), you want to change
the manner (the trill itself).

I've been told that the Bernoulli principle (the same principle that explains why
airplanes fly) can explain how trills work. There a "sweet spot" where the right
amount of force from the air stream and the point of contact between the uvula and
back of the tongue creates an imbalance in pressure that creates the trill. So you're
really good at hitting that sweet spot.

If you want to "turn off your trill", then you have to change either the
force/pressure of the air coming from your lungs, or you have to change how close the
back of your tongue is to your uvula. Probably a bit of both.

Maybe you can practice breathing like Darth Vader. (Yeah, seriously.) Something like
"khhhh-phhhho". The "khhhh" is close to the sound to are trying to make, you just need
to produce it at the uvula (farther back/down), not the soft palate/velum.

Maybe it can also help you not to think of it as "turning off the trill", but as a
completely different sound. Try not to associate the sound that you want to make (I'm
assuming a fricative) with the trill.

Here's a
e
s/midsagittal_bw.jpg"">picture of your mouth. The soft palate/velum is where you
make the K/G
sounds (and the "khhhhh" of Darth Vader). You are currently trilling at the uvula. You
want to make the "khhhh" of Darth Vader at the uvula too. Here's
what it sounds like.

EDIT: I can't get the link to a picture of the mouth to work, so I guess you can
Google "place of articulation picture" if you're interested. :-)

Edited by Kavakos on 28 April 2015 at 6:06am
3 persons have voted this message useful

tarvos
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Message 10 of 10

28 April 2015 at 6:01am | IP Logged

tangleweeds wrote:

My French problem that I can't not trill with my uvula,
when I try to make a sound in
that area of my throat. I use an uvular trill as part of my call for our cats,
mimicking the
sound mother cats use to call their kittens (very effective). So I exercise my uvula
several
times a day, and then I can't figure out how to shut it off when I want to make a
different
sound down in there.

Should I try moving the sound deeper into my throat to kill the trill, or the other
way,
forward toward my mouth? Or something else? I'm altogether failing to the R sound I'm
hearing
in Assimil French with Ease.

That's not a trill, it's a uvular approximant. You want to nearly scrape and blow out
the air while constricting your uvula.

You can also use a fricative but I find that too strong for the r - the approximant is
better.

Edited by tarvos on 28 April 2015 at 6:03am
3 persons have voted this message useful

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